


a new program

by shanlyrical



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Shadows of the Empire - Steve Perry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Memory Loss, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-04-23 14:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19153186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanlyrical/pseuds/shanlyrical
Summary: At first, she just thought he was stupid.When Guri challenged the legendary Luke Skywalker to unarmed combat, she didn’t expect him to accept.





	a new program

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



At first, she just thought he was stupid.

When Guri challenged the legendary Luke Skywalker to unarmed combat, she didn’t expect him to accept. He styled himself a Jedi Knight, she knew, and she knew from her extensive historical databases that, while the Jedi of the Old Republic were honorable, they did not prioritize honor for its own sake. They would always act in the service of the greater good for the galaxy – both absolute moral principle and personal glory took second place to what they perceived to be their higher obligations. Naturally, then, she assumed he would cut her down with his lightsaber, and that would be the end of that. A part of her almost welcomed it.

That wasn’t how it happened, though. Instead of cutting her down, he accepted her challenge. _He’s a dumb blond_ , she thought, _exemplifying the reason they made_ me _blonde – as misdirection. So when they see me they don’t see what’s coming for them until it’s too late_. Only, in this instance, _Guri_ was the one who didn’t see what was coming until it was too late. Luke proceeded to defeat her, and he defeated her definitively on _her_ terms. She’d never seen anyone – not even a droid – move as fast as he did. He must’ve used the Force. Truly, Luke was a worthy bearer of his own legend.

And then, he spared her life and insisted that she wasn’t to blame for her master’s many crimes. He invited her to join his cause. The Rebel cause.

“Come with us. We can have you reprogrammed,” he said. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t program yourself,” he said.

Guri refused him; her present programming would not allow her to fight for freedom…her own or anyone else’s. She was a killer, not a savior, and she didn’t think that anyone or anything, and certainly not this Jedi’s precious Force, was going to be her salvation in turn. But as she lay there on the floor, watching him leave, unable to move, unable to _follow_ , she wished with all of her synthetic heart that things could be different.

* * *

Thanks to top of the line diagnostic and self-repair functionality, she made it out in time, of course. She also managed to get herself safely – and wholly undetected – off of Coruscant. What she couldn’t do, however, was get Luke Skywalker out of her mind.

Luke, whose honor and fundamental goodness she’d first mistaken for stupidity. Luke, who had beaten her in one-to-one, hand-to-hand combat without breaking a sweat. Her former master had been brilliant, it was true, but he had been ruthless and cruel, and in spite of his ruthlessness and cruelty, he could not have have beaten Guri in a fair fight. Even though, Maker knew, they had trained and trained and _trained_ together.

They’d also done… _other_ things together, Guri and Xizor. _Recreational_ things. Xizor had always enjoyed those things immensely, even when Guri had not. Well, not especially. No more than the killings, anyway. They were just another part of her job. But now, Guri wondered if maybe she’d like to try those things with Luke. She thought she might actually enjoy those things, if they were with Luke, and she had vague, poorly formed ideas in her biomechanical, neuroelectric net about how she could get Luke to like these things, too. Yes, that would be nice.

Come to think of it, they could do  _everything_ together, and they could _be_ together, always. Yes, yes, that would be even nicer.

But first, she needed her programming altered, and for that, she would need to find the being who had designed her. Given that Massad Thrumble had gone into hiding, this was easier said than done, but Guri was nothing if not as resourceful as Thrumble had made her, and she was able to track him down to a cantina on Hurd’s Moon. More importantly, she was able to convince him to reprogram her.

“I want to be free,” she told him, “and I want the galaxy to be free.”

Thrumble did his job too well. Freeing her from her past made her forget it. She forgot her work for Black Sun and Xizor; she forgot the covert operations and assassinations and all of the other… _recreational_ things she had done. She forgot Luke Skywalker.

But Guri did not forget her newfound commitment to freedom, and so she nonetheless joined the Rebel Alliance. Her enhanced senses and super-fast reflexes were put in the service of reconnaissance missions and border patrol, sent wherever her skills might come in useful. Purely by chance, she was part of a mop up team apprehending stray Imperials wandering the surface of the forest moon after the Battle of Endor.

She did not apprehend any stray Imperials that day. She did not, in fact, apprehend anyone. But she _did_ meet a man, smelling of smoke and burnt tech circuitry, wearing an expression on his face that was strong but sad.

“Name?” Guri said curtly, blaster at the ready. He didn’t look like a threat, but it never hurt to be cautious. And he was carrying a _lightsaber_ …

“Luke Skywalker,” the man said.

“Oh.” Guri said, lowering her blaster. She smiled tentatively. “Come with me.”

Guri had gotten her new programming. Now, this would be their new beginning.


End file.
